Step inside the newly completed Shenzhen Natural History Museum

The new Shenzhen Natural History Museum opened to the public yesterday, adding one of the world's largest new natural history museums (and the largest in South China) to the city's growing collection of cultural landmarks.

Designed by the 3XN, B+H Architects, and Zhubo Design consortium, the 1.1 million-square-foot museum rises from the landscape beside Yanzi Lake as a walkable terrain of sloping roofs, terraces, and public plazas. The building blurs the line between architecture, landscape, and civic space, inviting visitors onto its roof before they even step inside.

Its flowing granite form draws inspiration from the region's river systems and surrounding hills, while five dramatic cone-shaped volumes organize the museum's exhibition halls into a sequence of cave-like spaces, atriums, and framed views.

Inside, eight galleries trace Earth's history, from the origins of the universe to dinosaurs, human evolution, and the ecosystems of...